Since I finished late last night, this will have to doā¦
My modified Fenix TK-75 at 4300 lumens
The 12 XP-E2 Torch Showerhead at 2974 lumens
Cajampa, I DID get this for the XHP-70 and Lum 5-90, but the head is SOOO shallow, thereās just no way without a lathe to make that happen. So I punted.
And yes, the 1811 lumen X6 is using a new XM-L2 U3 1A emitter. I first de-domed one, it was making over 1600 naked, so I put a stock one in and sure enough, over 1800 lumens!
On these Torch emitters, I really expected them to be on the blue/white side. But theyāre not at all bad, actually showing a nicer tint than the XM-L2 U3 1Aās in my TK-75. A pleasant surprise.
^ Whoa, that's got to be the tightest 12 emitter hot spot around. Can't wait to hear what you think about the spill and general usability of the light.
Is your final config DD using 2S3P cells and 2S6P emitters on copper?
Itās got the factory boost driver in it. But yes 2S3P on the cells, 6S on the emitter, in 2 groups. The driver has 2 channels, each channel has a positive and negative lead for the 6S set that it runs. There are 2 toroids as well, presumably one for each channel.
In a rather unfair side by side, I shot beamshots of the TrustFire 12x XP-E2 Torch at 97 yds and 610 yds against my new SupBeam K40 VN. This K40 was a gift by a couple of friends of mine and Iām blown away, nice guys, love the light.
TrustFire 12x at 97 yds.
K40 VN at 97 yds.
TrustFire 12x at 610 yds
K40 VN at 610 yds
Now, who would have thought a 12x showerhead light would be putting light on a barn 610 yds distant? The driver is stock too, going up against a highly modified thrower. Not too shabby says meself! lol
Do you have some kcd numbers on that TrustFire 12x? it looks surprisingly throwy for a showerhead light. And kcd & lumens on the K40 vn for comparison would also be interesting.
Thank you Dale for the follow up and the beam shots. I was just certain that you would swap out the boost driver for direct drive. I know you mentioned frying some xpe2's in that 4 up, but figured you'd give it a go in the 12 up. Now that I think about it, the 4 up was just one cell. So I see why would didn't go that way with 6 cells.
Hard to put the beam shots in perspective, without knowing emitter current but it would be a real pain in the arse to set up and measure in that light.
Just measure one of the two strings. Since they are in series all of the emitters see the same amount of current. With that boost driver it doesn't matter if you have 100% charged high drain cells.
With 3 of these Torch emitters left over, I got busy on an old project today. I used one of the Torch emitters on a 20mm Noctigon. I used the driver out of my new XR55 from Bangood, 7 7135 chips at 380mA. Engaging a star gives me L-M-H with no blinkies so Iām good with that. These went into a Courui D01 assembly, the head replaced with the massive Ledil Seanna. :bigsmile:
I didnāt even measure amperage, gotta be less than 3A, 2.8? So itās making some 200+ lumens, right? How about a 357Kcd throw from this little hot rod?
They take a longer solvent dedome time for the dome to lift itself clean, time lapse shows about 8 hours on one, where an XM-L2 is about half that time if that. Itās just because thereās more dome material sealing between die and chip on a small die.
Phosphor is extremely fragile on Torches, near edges especially. You do not want to even touch the phosphor or it will dent and leak 455nm light.
Recycling works good on them, but the reflect focus is that much harder to get right because the target is so small, need a lot of patience to nail it. The RA needs to be within 0.1mm of center and thatās actually conservative because 0.1mm off-center can miss up to 20% of total die surface on return absorb pass. I turned one E2 Torch die to spotted black at only 3.15A mounted on solid bar stock with a lab supply pretty quick, so run them just like a standard E2 at 2.5A. They have high thermal resistance and they do not care for any more than 2.6A max sustained with a proper sink. That should net up around 420-450 lumens, dedomed.
Hi MEM. If I may askā¦ As far as I know you make use of chemical dedome methods? Iāve been skeptical about this, and this is just my perception, regarding what the chemicals will do to the āextremely fragile phosphorā. I still do heat dedoming, just for this reason, none else. The fact that chemical dedoming takes longer, is not an issue to me. Will you give your opinion on this, regarding the effect chemicals have on the phosphor and the quality of the dedome? Iād like to be convinced to start trying chemical dedomingā¦
Theres also some other questions I have related to this:
What chemical mix do you use?
Iāve seen some ugly / bad chemical dedomes? Should there be less residue, related to the dome itself, when doing chemical dedomes?
Can you give an indication how long the different LEDs take to chemical dedome? It seems the XP-E2 takes around 8 hours, XM-L2 around 4 hours? How long does XP-L take and which other LEDs can be safely chemically dedomed?
I will gladly give my opinion. I know that a Cree phosphor is physically weak. I have witnessed zero evidence after hundreds of de-domes that the phosphor is chemically weak against common plastic/rubber solvents. If you put a LED in a solution, it is your duty to watch it and prepare to remove it when ready. While Iāve seen zero evidence that chemical solvents effect phosphor in any way, of course you can make it turn ugly. Just leave it in solution for 2 weeks and come back. The only thing I have ever seen showing a chemical de-dome changing anything on an LED, is a light brownish/orange tarnish that appears on the package metal, not the phosphor, by leaving it in for well past 8 hours (10-12 hours will usually show some light tarnish on the silver in some area, so donāt wait).
Is phosphor removed in a chemical de-dome? No.
Is phosphor removed in a hot de-dome? Around here, all the time.
Why would I poke, stab, and prod a hard material (made to take heat) that is attached to a sensitive material, when I can pour liquid on the LED, and watch the dome remove itself, nearly perfectly?
I did a de-dome last night. Cree XM-L2. Complete edge swell occurs within 20 minutes. In 1.5 hours, I can probably safely ātouchā the dome and it will drift off. But I want the LED clean. If you bought a light that was advertised as de-domed, and chunks of the dome were all around the die when you got it, I bet you would be more interested in the guyās lights who donāt leave that crap there for you to look at. I would be. So I expect a clean de-dome myself. I donāt cut corners when I have to do next to nothing to make it right. Iāve never been in a situation when I said to myself, āoh no, a de-dome is needed within 10 minutes or we are gonna lose this lightā. If I bought the LEDs, I knew long ahead of time they were being de-domed, while they traveled in the mail to me. So when someone says, but I donāt have the timeā¦some of us just donāt view time the same as planning I guess.
Thereās no set time for a de-dome in any LED. Play it by eye. When the dome is detached and ready to float away, remove it. Larger domes have more surface area and take in more solution more quickly, creating more swell that pushes and then becomes buoyant, thus lifting quicker most of the time. This applies to square dies, MT-G2s are a different story.
Iāve tried all kinds of chemical solutions, methods, experiments in setup and positioning, when it comes to chemicals and dedoming. I can always over-complicate something if I try. But with this, for you guys, there is zero need to. It hasnāt changed over the years. I donāt know what genius got mad at gasoline, but you maybe shouldnāt have listened when he spoke. Acetone = poor. Paint thinner = poor. Gasoline = great.
As for the time lapse, I did one, and my IP cam froze a half hour in, like it loves to do when I need it most, always because of a buffer cache I forget to change from default. So I have the very beginning of video, and some of the rest, but Iād rather just make another video thatās complete instead of posting the segments. So Iāll do that, again, correctly. I de-dome about every other day so itās no problem. Regardless, my standard camera works just fine, so I took photos of full-swell of the dome at 2.5 hours in gasoline with no tricks involved. This should however prove that whoever says gas doesnāt work, either isnāt trying, or isnāt doing something rightāand I donāt know how can you mess up something as simple as pouring fluid in a glass. Not even the bond wires have material stuck to them, so Iāll never have a desire to do it the hot way. Sorry, but thatās just me.
After the first photo, I touched the dome with a zip-tie and it drifted right off the LED. Here are the photos:
Yes that is perfect de dome method :) Thanks for sharing and posting all those pictures.
I told several times in few threads that Tom-E gasoline method works far best for me, and I really tried every other mentioned methods here. Yes gas de-doming changes emitter tint towards green if left plenty of hours/days or weeks(i tried).
But I do them in less than 50 minutes. No any tint shift. I leave residues around emitter wires that are fairly thick(if left up to 50 minutes, if left more than 1,30 hours they start to crumble) and they protect wires(probably not needed but I tend to leave them).
The most important for me that there are no junk leftovers on phosphor layer because it messes my aspheric die projection. Not so important for reflector lights.
MEM did you tried XP-E2 de doming? It should be much harder than XM-L2 cause silicone is harder.
Hi MEMā¦ Excuse my late reply. Thanks for your informative feedback, lots appreciated. Ok, so youāve convinced me to start experimenting with gas dedoming, thanks As mentioned, the time it takes to chemically dedome is not an issue to me. I believe in patients. It normally pays off. It seems also in this case, but, the proof is in the pudding. Iām starting with some experiments soon. Will reply with my findings.
Just to confirm, do you experience a 100% success rate with gas dedoming, in terms of not loosing LEDs related to ANY defects?
And, regarding the MT-G2s. Is it a long procedure? If possible, can you comment on this?
